Electronic devices, such as mobile phones and personal digital assistants (PDA's), often contain firmware and application software that are either provided by the manufacturers of the electronic devices, by telecommunication carriers, or by third parties. These firmware and application software often contain software bugs. New versions of the firmware and software are periodically released to fix the bugs or to introduce new features, or both. Quite often by the time an electronic device is manufactured to the time that it is purchased by a customer, new bug fixes are released. Often, new versions of firmware or software are also released. The customer often does not get the latest versions of firmware or software for the device being purchased. Thus, newly acquired electronic devices often contain bugs and lack newer features released subsequent to its manufacturing.
Typically, electronic devices, such as mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDA), etc. comprise of firmware of other software that is “flashed” into the device at some stage of its manufacturing, such as during the last stage of assembly of the device in an assembly line or during a phase of an outbound logistics operation (for example, during packaging or shipping). Flashing electronic devices takes several seconds, if not several minutes, based upon the size of the non-volatile memory in these devices. Thus, the flashing activity slows down the assembly line.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of such systems with some aspects of the present invention as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.